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Parting With The Past Inside the fight over a team mascot in Idaho BY SUE MUNCASTER
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8 INLANDER AUGUST 29, 2013
tupid political correctness is killing us!” was one longtime local’s response after the school superintendent of Teton County, Idaho, sacked “Redskins” as the school’s mascot. As a fifth-generation resident and Teton High School graduate himself, Superintendent Monte Woolstenhulme said he figured that the move would distress some people. Yet nothing could have prepared him for the community’s fervid response. As the head volleyball coach at Teton High, I’ve always been bothered that I teach at one of the last remaining schools in the country to use Native American mascots. More than 40 years ago in 1972, Stanford University, where I was a student, switched from the Indians to the Cardinal. Lois Amsterdam, Stanford’s ombudsperson, noted that the name Indians was never meant to “defile a racial group. Rather, it was a reflection of our society’s retarded understanding, dulled perception and clouded vision.” The public outcry here in reaction to the name change was loudest on social media, and a petition circulated to reverse the decision was signed by 410 people within 24 hours. To put that in perspective, a total of just 364 people voted in last May’s school board election. Even after leaders of the local Shoshone-Bannock Tribe supported discarding the Redskin moniker, more than 200 people dressed in Redskin gear showed up at a school board meeting to demand its retention. “It’s our constitutional right to say whatever we want,” people argued, “and if someone is offended, then that’s their problem.” At the conclusion of that emotional school board
meeting, Woolstenhulme recommended tabling a decision on the mascot until further notice. The Redskin debate has been one of the hottest in a simmering slew of issues in recent years. It’s what happens when one of the most conservative communities in the West gets discovered by outdoor enthusiasts and retirees, some of them liberal thinkers from different parts of the country. Most of us here live together in relative harmony. But just when I think it’s not that bad, a truck pulls up next to me while I’m dropping off my 11-year-old daughter at her 4-H archery club, and a small, freckled boy hops out of a side door whose window has a bumper sticker that says “Gorpers Suck.” For those not in the know, a gorper refers to an environmentalist, or perhaps a hiker or biker. When does someone’s freedom of speech infringe on another person’s well-being? When is it just plain mean and mindless to insult people you don’t know? I have the utmost reverence for the past and its cherished symbols, but it’s time to move forward. I believe Woolstenhulme’s decision was a good-faith attempt to accept and understand another culture and set rules for effective and non-threatening communications. Now it’s up to “us” and “them” and everyone in between to decide whether united we’ll stand, or divided we’ll fall. n Sue Muncaster is a freelance writer, coach, food activist and adventurous mom. A version of this essay first appeared in High Country News (hcn.org).
John F Teters: It’s getting better, but need to stop using Native Americans as Mascots — we are still alive and well, stop treating us as possessions. Elaine Gerard: Minorities are becoming more proactive on their own behalf. Theresa Anne Monter: We need to stop assuming that every crime involving people of two separate races is automatically a hate crime unless proven otherwise. All this does is cause unnecessary political unrest and a divide, instead of unity. Bill Toney: People haven’t changed all that much. People still react based on tribal affiliation as opposed to reason when it comes to news of violence. Stanley Peterson: I still see that very much whites generally hang out with whites and the same goes for blacks. We are divided not only racially, but monetarily, socially and educationally. A black family moving into a white neighborhood generally has to deal with all the sidelong judgmental glances of those around them — same goes for a white family moving into a black neighborhood. There is a general distrust for one another that hasn’t been addressed. Brie Edwards: We still have a long way to go. I have witnessed many incidents of racism locally that were very out in the open. ... Check the comments on any news story online and see the comments made that are full of racist bile. We have made some improvements since the March on Washington, but we still have quite a long way to go. Patrick McClenahan: Tolerance, and coexistence need to be taught at a young age, and practiced through old age. n